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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama has authorized the execution of a second inmate by nitrogen gas, months after the state became the first state to put a person to death with the previously untested method. The Alabama Supreme Court on Thursday granted the state attorney general’s request for an execution date for Alan Eugene Miller, who survived a 2022 lethal injection attempt. The state’s governor will set the exact date of the execution for Miller, who was convicted of killing three men during a 1999 workplace shooting. The Alabama attorney general’s office, in a February court filing seeking the execution date for Miller, said the execution would be carried out by nitrogen gas. Alabama in January used nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Smith. Smith shook and convulsed in seizure-like movements for several minutes on the death chamber gurney as he was put to death on Jan. 25.Miller has an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging the execution method as a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, citing witness descriptions of Smith’s death. “Rather than address these failures, the State of Alabama has attempted to maintain secrecy and avoid public scrutiny, in part by misrepresenting what happened in this botched execution,” the lawyers wrote. It is expected that his attorneys will ask the federal judge to block the execution from going forward. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall maintained that the execution was “textbook” and said the state will seek to carry out more death sentences using nitrogen gas.“The State of Alabama is prepared to carry out the execution of Miller’s sentence by means of nitrogen hypoxia,” the attorney general’s office wrote in the February motion seeking the execution authorization. State attorneys added that Miller has been on death row since 2000 and that it is time to carry out his sentence.An attorney listed for Miller did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit. A spokesman for Marshall confirmed the court had set the execution date but did not immediately comment.Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted of killing Terry Jarvis, Lee Holdbrooks and Scott Yancy in the workplace shooting.

U.S. Central Command is acknowledging that one year ago Friday, it mistakenly struck a civilian in a strike in Syria, not the al-Qaeda leader it was looking for.”Mr. Lufti Hasan Masto (Masto), was struck and killed instead. Many of the facts and other findings of the investigation involve classified information and cannot be shared publicly,” CENTCOM wrote in a statement Thursday.”What we can share is the investigation concluded the strike was conducted in compliance with the law of armed conflict as well as Department of Defense and CENTCOM policies. However, the investigation revealed several issues that could be improved,” the statement read.Related StoriesThis is a developing story. Please check back for updates.ABC News’ Anne Flaherty and Matt Seyler contributed to this report.

A large staffing firm that performed COVID-19 contact tracing for Pennsylvania and exposed the private medical information of about 72,000 residents will pay $2.7 million in a settlement with the Justice Department and a company whistleblower, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.The Pennsylvania Department of Health paid Atlanta-based Insight Global tens of millions of dollars to administer the state’s contact tracing program during the height of the pandemic. The company was responsible for identifying and contacting people who had been exposed to the coronavirus so they could quarantine.Employees used unauthorized Google accounts — readily viewable online — to store names, phone numbers, email addresses, COVID-19 exposure status, sexual orientations and other information about residents who had been reached for contact tracing, even though the company’s contract with the state required it to safeguard such data.State health officials fired Insight Global in 2021 after the data breach came to light. A subsequent federal whistleblower lawsuit alleged that Insight Global secured its lucrative contract with Pennsylvania knowing that it lacked secure computer systems and adequate cybersecurity. The whistleblower — a former Insight Global contractor — complained to company management that residents’ health information was potentially accessible to the public, according to the lawsuit. The company initially ignored her, then, when pressed, told the whistleblower “it was not willing to pay for the necessary computer security systems and instead preferred to use its contract funds to hire large numbers of workers,” the lawsuit said.It took Insight Global five months to start securing residents’ protected medical information, according to the U.S. Justice Department. “Contractors for the government who do not follow procedures to safeguard individuals’ personal health information will be held accountable,” Maureen R. Dixon, who heads up the inspector general’s office at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday in a statement on the settlement, of which the whistleblower is set to receive nearly $500,000.Insight Global, which has about 70 offices in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., has previously acknowledged it mishandled sensitive information and apologized. The company said at the time it only belatedly became aware that employees had set up the unauthorized Google accounts for sharing information.A message was sent to the company Wednesday seeking comment on the settlement.

One child was killed and another injured when a bounce house was swept up by wind in Casa Grande, Arizona, in what local authorities called “a tragic accident.”Saturday’s fatality occurred after a strong gust sent the inflatable toy house “airborne into the neighboring lot” with several children playing inside, according to a statement from the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office.A two-year-old was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. The second child was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Authorities didn’t publicly identify the victims.Experts say unsafe wind conditions can trigger such accidents frequently, especially in the southwestern U.S. However, the sheriff’s office said it was not aware of any similar events in Pinal County. Few states in the U.S. have explicit guidelines or regulations for setting up bounce houses, despite the weather-related risks.One study of wind-related bounce house accidents found that most happened due to a few meteorological causes. Dust devils and distant thunderstorms are two common precursors.Dust devils stem from a difference in heating that causes an updraft in one area and a downdraft in another, said Jeff Masters, founder of Weather Underground and now with Yale Climate Connections. “All you would need is a little bit of a wind gust from the side to cause that to spin, and it creates a vortex,” he said.The result can be winds of 50 to 60 miles per hour. Cold fronts, or conditions after one, can cause falling temperatures, atmospheric pressure changes and gusty winds. “All it takes is a minute of wind to loft one of those things,” Masters said of bounce houses. “And if you have your bounce house up, then you’re at risk.” ___Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

An active shooter was reported outside a Wisconsin middle school Wednesday, school officials said.The threat has been “neutralized” and the Mount Horeb Area School District is on lockdown, the district said.This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.